The present invention relates to a device for vertically stacking individually successively fed coins or similar disk-shaped objects.
A device of this type is known from EP 0 332 160 A2 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,890) and has basically proved itself in view of present stacking philosophy. In the course of time, however, certain design-specific shortcomings have emerged. One of these shortcomings concerns the stacking space is that at high feed velocity, the coins exhibit a flutter that cannot be entirely avoided. As a result, with a canted impinging of the coins on the bounding elements, the coins flip sideways and thus are prevented from forming a satisfactory stack formation.
Another problem concerns the transfer of the coin stack to the pick-up pin for transfer to a follow-on stacking station. In this respect, the concept of the prior stacking device is such that the coin stack is abruptly set on the so-called scissors, by way of which the coin stack is then transferred to the aforementioned pick-up pin.
The specific design of the coin carriers and jointed axles, and specifically the suspension from the attachment to the conveyer belts has also proved to have problems. The suspension connections lose their rigid coordinations in the course of time, so that shortcomings enter into the coin stacking system. Lastly, the guide rail of the feed system has led to problems insofar as it reaches too far toward the stacking space; i.e., at a high feed velocity, the trailing edge of the last fed coin to the stacking space cannot sufficiently quickly flip away from the plane of the guide rail for the next coin to miss it. A final point of difficulty is based on the fact that the coins to be stacked feature tolerance-related different thicknesses, which may lead to inaccurate stacking heights and, thus, variations in the number of coins stacked.
All in all, the prior stacking system has after many years of trial been proved to be worthy of improvement and advancement. The problem underlying the present invention, therefore, is to modify the prior categorical stacking device to the effect that the said problem points will be eliminated. These problems are solved, in terms of the basic configuration, by the features of the present invention.